Back on the other website, there used to be a sub called r/12in12 where people would try to beat 12, 24, 36+ games per year. I never really set myself any specific target like that, but the end of year reviews were always fun to read/write. Considering that I don’t think a single game I beat came out this year, I think this is the right community to ask this.

What games did you beat this year? What did you think of them?

For me:

January:

Nothing!

February:

Spider-Man: Miles Morales 7/10

When I first played Spider-Man on a PS4, I didn’t like it. The 30fps cap made the swinging feel clunky and nothing about the rest of the game made up for it. The PC release finally comes around and at last I get the hype, the web swinging is so good. The combat is very Arkham and it’s fine, the story is fine, but the web swinging is just so good. Spider-Man Miles Morales is just more of that.

The Zachtronics Solitaire Collection ?/10

This game is responsible for Steam thinking that Solitaire is one of my favorite genres of games. There are multiple versions of the game here, most of them are fine but Fortune’s Foundation is probably my new favorite version of Solitaire. I don’t know what I’d rate this out of 10, but I got 90 hours of entertainment for my $10.

March:

Split / Second 8/10

The PC port sucks, you have to use a fan patch to remove the 30fps cap, the controller support is terrible, but there’s nothing else like it. It’s a fantastic arcade racer with a super unique premise. The rest of the industry seeing this and Blur bombing financially is probably why racing games are so goddamn anemic now which is such a shame.

April:

Rakuen 7/10

I’ve never really gotten into any RPG Maker games like this, but it had great reviews and I needed something battery-friendly to play on my Steam Deck. Rakuen was pretty darn good, the characters are well written and the environments outside of the hospital are pretty. The story is a little predictable, but I think that’s fine what it wanted to tell.

May:

Hotshot Racing 6/10

What’s here is fun, but there’s almost nothing here. I beat the entire campaign in about an hour. The AI rubber-banding was a bit annoying at times. Also re-reading the Steam page, apparently it has always-online DRM? The fuck?

June:

Universal Paperclips ?/10

I was in the mood for a clicker game. I tried Cookie Clicker first but the pacing is just so slow. Universal Paperclips is a clicker game that can be completed in a reasonable amount of time, and it scratched the itch I was looking for.

July:

Wilmot’s Warehouse 8/10

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/Ai4NZnjOdUE/maxresdefault.jpg

Super Meat Boy 5/10

I’ve forced myself to start this game so many times over the years, I finally completed it and I just don’t like it. Way too janky/buggy for a simple 2D platformer. I beat the final level 3 times and couldn’t figure out what to do at the end, only for it to turn out that the final cutscene wasn’t activating because my frame rate was too high. Ugh. It just made me want to play N++ again.

Ape Out 9/10

Ahhh it’s so good. The soundtrack and sound effects and visuals, it’s just perfect. A little on the short side (only took 1:40 to beat), but it’s pretty replayable.

Neodash 7/10

It’s basically Distance but worse. Distance is one of my favorite games of all time and is firmly a 10/10, so that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Any levels that rely on the mid-air controls bring down the experience a bit, but luckily there aren’t a ton of those.

August:

CrossCode 10/10

A top-down RPG with a ~50-hour story? I should hate this, but everything clicked into just the right place. The puzzles are fun (maybe a little too long), the combat is great, the characters are great, the story is great, I did not expect to love this game as much as I did.

Sayonara Wild Hearts 6/10

It’s basically a 1-hour music video. It’s very pretty and the songs are good, but the gameplay just kind of… exists.

Mad Max 6/10

It’s a beautiful looking game and the vehicle combat is fun, but everything else is pure mid-2010s generic open world game, complete with Arkham combat.

Riptide GP2 6/10

It’s fine, but there’s absolutely no reason to play this over Riptide GP Renegade unless you’re really board and looking for a grindy podcast game like I was. Renegade is just this but better in every way. It is a bummer that there are so few boat (or boat-adjacent) racing games coming out these days.

WRC Powerslide 4/10

It’s insanely repetitive and the driving physics are really floaty. The power-ups are awful but luckily they can be turned off in settings. The damage model is actually really good though, which is bizarre for a top-down racer. This got delisted from Steam years ago, if I didn’t already own it, I would not go out of my way to play it.

The Vanishing of Ethan Carter 7/10

It’s a fun little walking simulator mystery game, I don’t remember much of the actual story right now lol. I played the remastered version which was very pretty though.

Quantum Conundrum 7/10

It’s a 6/10 puzzle game brought up by a full point because of John de Lancie’s character.

September:

Hotline Miami 8/10

I know it’s technically kind of a mess, but like everyone else I really loved it anyway. The soundtrack is excellent and clearing rooms is super satisfying. Raycevick’s video really makes me want to play OXTO next.

PowerWash Simulator 8/10

The perfect podcast game.

October:

Cassette Beasts 8/10

The Pokemon games have always sounded interesting to me, but I’ve just never been able to get into any of them as an adult. Cassette Beasts finally scratched that itch for me, and this works way better as a concept than the Pokemon games do for me. As a bonus, the story is surprisingly good as well. Also it’s made in Godot!

Sonic Generations 5/10

I don’t like the Sonic games, but I’ve always heard this is one of the good ones so I decided to play it. A couple of the levels were fun, but most were just frustrating and/or buggy. For a character who’s entire thing is going fast, the levels sure like constantly slowing you down with obstacles that cannot be seen coming.

The Witness 6/10

90% of the levels in this game are good and clever, where finding the solution is fun and satisfying. The remaining 10% includes puzzles where the entire screen is flashing to make it hard to look at, puzzles where the answer still makes no sense even after googling it, and puzzles that cannot be solved unless you solve a different puzzle first with no indication of where that’s the case. The story is also nonsense but luckily it’s easily ignored. This video was so cathartic after finishing the game.

Doom Eternal (& The Ancient Gods) 8/10

“Doom Eternal is a game with so much testosterone dripping from its orifices that it caused me to create a son via mitosis”

November:

Superliminal 8/10

My primary complaint is that it isn’t longer. It took a little over an hour and a half to reach the end, but what’s here is fantastic.

December:

Nothing again, lol

  • B0NK3RS@lemmy.worldEnglish
    10·
    9 months ago

    I don’t complete many games so in 2023 it is a grand total of 2…

    Inside, it was very eerie and I had fun. I even went back for the alternative ending.

    Jusant, a relatively new game and I found it very enjoyable. Definitely made my top 10 games list and I still want to go back and find all the collectables.

  • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
    41·
    9 months ago

    Huh, I don’t really track this, but Steam kinda does, so I’ll reconstruct it. I’ll give my ratings on a 5 star scale, with 3 being “fun but not special” and 5 being “highlight of the year.”

    January:

    • Golf Club Wasteland - 3 - apparently renamed to Golf Club Nostalgia; pretty cool golfing game

    March:

    • Ori and the Blind Forest - 4 - fun Metroidvanias

    April:

    • Deponia trilogy - 4 - I love point+click adventure games (nostalgia), and this was better than expected

    May:

    • Relicta - 3.5 - the puzzles were all quite good, except a couple at the end
    • Nuts - 4.5 - very interesting gameplay
    • A Juggler’s Tale - 4 - I’m a sucker for these kinds of games
    • Nier: Replicant - 5 - fanatic story, got me pumped to play Automata, which I’m currently playing

    July:

    • Blue Fire - 4 - fun action game, with Metroidvania elements
    • Yakuza Kiwami 2 - 3.5 - not as good as either Yakuza 0 or Yakuza Kiwami, but still lots of fun
    • Raven’s Hike - 3 - fun platformer
    • Klocki - 4 - fun, short puzzle game
    • Zelda: Breath of the Wild - 3.5 - pretty fun, but a big disappointment vs other Zelda games

    August:

    • Perspective - 4 - really cool free tech demo, unfortunately, I don’t think the mechanics would work well as a full game
    • The Bridge - 5 - really cool non-Euclidean puzzle game, very Escher-esque (M.C. Escher is my favorite artist, so I’m a bit biased here)
    • Ittle Dew - 5 - really fun Zelda-like, with lots of great commentary/satire about those kinds of games

    September:

    • Darkside Detective - 4.5 - again, I love point and click games, and this was really funny too
    • Hexlogic - 5 - great puzzle game with an innovative sudoku-esque feel
    • Grand Mountain Adventure - 2.5 - fun, but getting around could be pretty tedious, and I wasn’t a fan of the top down view

    October:

    • Human Resource Machine - 4.5 - fantastic programming puzzle game, would be 5 if the last few puzzles didn’t completely suck to finish (so tedious)
    • Return of the Obra Dinn - 5 - fantastic detective/puzzle game
    • Darkside Detective: A Fumble in the Dark - 4 - great follow-up to the first; nothing new, just more great point+click goodness
    • Zelda: Skyward Sword - 5 - fantastic dungeons, decent story and side content; I bought this and Link’s Awakening instead of Tears of the Kingdom

    November:

    • Instant Farmer - 3.5 - good puzzle game
    • Manifold Garden - 5 - innovative puzzle game
    • Cats in Time - 2 - kids liked it, but it was a finicky hidden object/escape room game

    December:

    • Mirrorama - 3.5 - puzzles were pretty good, but the story was really odd
    • Rob Riches - 3 - fun puzzle game, not too challenging (though getting minimum moves was occasionally tricky)
    • Little Nightmares - 4.5 - great game, weird story, scratched several itches; I didn’t like the DLC flashlight “fighting” sequence, and some puzzles were a little obtuse

    And some bonus in-progress games I hope to finish soon:

    • Nier: Automata - 3.5 so far, but likely going to be 4-4.5 later, I’m still pretty early into it (just finished first major boss fight)
    • Inscryption - 5 - I’m almost done, I’m in Act 3 with two known bosses left
    • Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky - 3.5 - I haven’t touched it since earlier this year, but I really enjoyed it at the time, I just haven’t been motivated to dig back in; got about halfway through I think, maybe a little more
    • CrossCode - 3.5 - enjoying it so far, just haven’t played for a couple weeks; will probably play a bunch over Christmas break; score will probably go up
    • Bendy and the Ink Machine - 3.5 - weird horror game, I think I’m close to finishing, but I’m not sure
    • Red Dead Redemption 2 - 3 - started, but didn’t get far enough for it to grip me; the original was a 5, so I expect good things
    • Ys: Oath of Felghana - 3.5 - pretty fun, but I dropped it because other games seemed more fun; will probably finish soon (about 10-15 hours in)
    • Hollow Knight - 4 - just started (finished first major boss, recently unlocked fast travel), so it may get a better score as I get further
      • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
        2·
        9 months ago

        The ones under the months, yes.

        Some I started in December of last year, but most I started and finished this year. I don’t get a ton of time to play games since I have young kids and a full-time job, but my Steam Deck makes it a lot easier to jump into a game for an hour before bed.

        I didn’t 100% most of them (I don’t care about achievements), but I completed most side content.

        • Darkncoldbard@lemmy.world
          1·
          9 months ago

          Ah ok, cause I was sitting here going… how in the hell is this even possible?? But yeah I constantly get stuck on games cause I want to 100 percent them so I only finished about… none? Close to finishing bannerlord though

          • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
            1·
            9 months ago

            Yeah, I 100%ed something like 4-5 of them, mostly the shorter ones where you get 100% just by rolling credits (or maybe doing one extra thing). I really don’t care about achievements, though I’ll pick some up if they’re not too annoying.

            I consider something “finished” if I complete the main storyline and any side content that interests me. I then mark it as “done” in Steam (I made a category) and will probably never play it again.

    • limeaide@lemmy.ml
      1·
      9 months ago

      I saw the Golf Club Wasteland name change as well and it caught me off guard lol. I think I enjoyed the “radio” more than the gameplay.

      The voice acting and scripts were all really entertaining.

  • SuzyQ@sh.itjust.works
    3·
    9 months ago

    Finally completed Little Inferno plus the DLC that apparently dropped last year(???!!!). I think it hit me harder than when I first played it years ago.

    Too many 100 hidden [object] or Cats Hidden in [City] type games to count. None cost a whole lot, and I feel like I got my money’s worth.

    I’m trying to go through my growing digital libraries and complete what I can. (But we all know the winter sale is coming soon…)

  • DampCanary@lemmy.worldEnglish
    3·
    9 months ago

    Mine list is quite short:

    Mass effect: Legendary edition - As it’s three games under one name it took me probably two months to complete. Coming from ESO Skyrim and Withcer 3 at first I wasn’t sure will it catch my attention beacuse it wasn’t as open as previous games, but by the end of first game I found myself really invested in story.

    Blacktail - It was great weekend game. I had hard time separating myself from it.

    Sipder Man: Miles Morales - really liked all interweaving of stories, fighting minions became kind of repetative toward the end, also I really liked chasing (by web swinging) missions.

    LEGO: Batman - It was alright as I mainly plaed it for brain rest. Plus LEGO: batman 2 is much better in playability (and stablility).

  • Ashtear@lemm.ee
    2·
    9 months ago

    I’m usually better about patient gaming, but I sunk a lot of hours into a certain very popular new release this year. The older releases I did finish:

    JRPGs
    • Atelier Rorona. Very chill game, enjoyed it once I got into a groove. I wrote up a more detailed community post on it earlier.
    • Atelier Totori. Simultaneously more funny than Atelier Rorona and more dramatic. Went some places I didn’t think it was going to go. The UI/UX in this was rough, which makes me think I’ve yet to play my favorite in this series.
    • Shin Megami Tensei IV. I really had to fight to get through the first few hours of this one. I may not have if it wasn’t my Discord server’s game of the month. Had a good time with it otherwise, aside from the occasional unwinnable random encounter. Excellent soundtrack.
    • Triangle Strategy. Solid gameplay, though it had fewer RPG elements than I’d like (equipment options in particular). There being a branching story was interesting, as that’s not a common thing in this genre. Not easy on the ears: atrocious English voice acting, forgettable soundtrack.
    • Xenoblade Chronicles 2. If I said I found the gameplay uninteresting, the quest design dated and that I was annoyed by the overall look of the game, one would think I hated it. However, I sunk right into the story and got very attached to Pyra for an overall (surprisingly) positive experience.
    • Xenogears (replay). Still one of my favorite stories in gaming. Desperately needs a re-release with an English script revision.
    The Rest
    • 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim. What you get when you pair a visual novel with exceptional, detailed sprite art. The combat sections are meh and I ran into more than a couple annoying chapters early, but the story has really grown on me since I finished it.
    • ⭐ Hardspace: Shipbreaker. My favorite in this post. Relaxing gameplay and great unconventional storytelling. If the game had a way to import my own music, I might still be playing it.
    • Metroid Dread. Super annoyed by the first couple hours, loved almost all of the rest. I also had a writeup on this one.
    • Night in the Woods. Cute design and dialogue. On the other hand, I’m very uncomfortable with how plausible the story is.
    • Phoenix Wright: Dual Destinies. Not the best Phoenix Wright. This one took me a few years to get through.
    • Unpacking. Surprisingly moving. It’s an interesting way to tell a story, and I did enjoy the game, but I don’t think I’ll be jumping at playing any copycats this might spawn.
  • cod@lemmy.worldM
    2·
    9 months ago

    I may be missing a few, but this is most of them I think. I don’t usually have a whole ton of time to sink into a game, so I usually only finish games if I really like them, hence all the scores being quite high. Next year I want to try and expand what I play a bit, and try finishing games that might not hook me immediately. When I used to have more free time, the games that took me a while to get into would become some of my favourites, so hopefully I can find some of those next year, but it’s hard when I’ve only got a couple hours a week at the most (though I’ve had a lot more time the last couple weeks thankfully). Anyway, here’s everything I saw end credits for this year:

    Elden Ring - 9.5/10 - my only souls experience before this was Dark Souls III several years ago, which I had remembered thoroughly enjoying. ER surpassed my expectations and completely blew me away. I became completely obsessed for months. Not much else got played for a while. Dec 2022 - Feb 2023 was all just ER. Very excited for the DLC, whenever that comes out.

    Sekiro - 9.9/10 - the closest to perfect of any game I’ve ever played. The chained ogre and the blazing bull feel out of place, but aside from those two mini bosses, I’d say the game is flawless. Probably my favourite game of all time now. I tried playing it for a little bit before attempting Elden Ring and didn’t like it, but after I saw every last pixel of ER, I decided to give Sekiro a second chance and I’m glad I did. I’ve done everything you could possibly do in that game, probably 4-5 times. And I’ll continue to redo them, probably every year as a tradition, unless they come out with either a sequel or another game with the same combat mechanics.

    Dark Souls Remastered - 9.5/10 - continuing with my FromSoft binge, DS1 blew me away about as much as ER did. Probably tied with ER for second favourite game ever. I still haven’t fully 100% completed it yet, but I’ve killed every boss and beaten the game. I do want to get all achievements at some point but haven’t gotten there yet.

    Dark Souls III - 9/10 - replayed this one, and loved it even more. Nostalgia definitely helped, but so did competency. I sucked at it my first time around all those years ago, but with multiple FromSoft games under my belt, replaying this was a totally different experience. It felt amazing destroying bosses that I suffered with many years ago. The game itself also happens to be phenomenal. Probably the best collection of bosses in the series, and Midir is still the only boss I haven’t been able to beat from any SoulsBorne game.

    Hollow Knight - 9/10 - played this one for the first time this year. I understand the cult-like following it managed to get. It’s awesome. I’m not amazing at it but I’ve gotten decent and I recently started a second playthrough. It’s probably a top 10 game for me.

    Dishonored - 9/10 - not my first playthrough, but first in a while and somehow better than I remembered. I’ve held this game on a high pedestal for a long time, and upon replaying it, found it surpassed my memory somehow. Usually it’s the other way around. Definitely a strong recommendation from me.

    Celeste - 8/10 - craving a super tough challenge again after putting a pause on souls-likes, I decided to give this one a try after hearing very high reviews. I’m glad I did, it was a blast. I haven’t completed all the optional challenges yet, but the main game and the side stuff I have done have all been exceptionally well made. Clearly a lot of hard work and love was put into it, you can tell immediately. If you just do the main content and ignore all challenges, it’s a pretty short game, but the challenges add a lot of content which I like. I’ll probably replay it in a few months.

    Gunpoint - 9/10 - this one really surprised me. I figured I’d like it but damn. The music is exceptional. The gameplay is addictive. Everything about this is great. Short but sweet in the way that it makes you wanting more. I genuinely can’t wait until it’s been long enough for me to forget a lot of it and can replay it. Honestly if it wasn’t so darn short it would be a top 10 game easy, maybe even top 5. It’s just over way too soon, which is the only thing holding it back. Every single person should at least check this game out. Truly fantastic.

    Starfield - 8.5/10 - weird for me to play a new game but I gave this one a chance. I know it got a bunch of criticism, but I loved it. Felt like Skyrim in space. I see why people were disappointed, and there are lots of valid criticisms. But for me they just don’t apply, and I had a blast with it. Looking forward to making a new character in the future.

    Batman Arkham Asylum - 8.5/10 - probably my third or fourth time completing it, but I really enjoy this one. I think City is my favourite, but this is a close second. It’s just a bit of a shame that I have most of the puzzles memorized by now. But an absolute classic that everyone should play.

    Currently playing: since the news of GTA6, I’ve been going back and forth between GTAV and RDR2, which has put a pause on the Hollow Knight replay. I’ve beaten both before, and they’re both high on my favourites list. Probably in the range of 9-9.5/10 for both. Not sure if I’ll complete either one by the end of the year, but my girlfriend apparently loves watching me play GTA which was cool to find out. She asks me every day if I can play it so she can watch. Half the time I just do stupid shit and we laugh our asses off. It’s great. Probably some of my favourite times together recently.

  • Valmond@lemmy.mindoki.com
    2·
    9 months ago

    The game if chess. Several times too!

    It’s actually a crazily cool game IMO. You heard of the hyper accelerated dragon? Of the blind swine check mate (even a blind swine can do it) others are from the 13 century and so on…

    French, Danish, the London System.

    There is something for everyone, even the loser (you’ll eventually lose half your games in a good matchmaking anyways) ; humility.

      • Valmond@lemmy.mindoki.com
        2·
        9 months ago

        The whole thing feels like a chaotic system, anywhere, even when you’re winning 100 percent, the slightest insane miscalculation might smell doom.

        It’s a fearsome game.

        • rebelsimile@sh.itjust.works
          3·
          9 months ago

          It is great, because it starts with more information and permutations than humans can handle and as the strategic window narrows to where humans conceivably can, it depends on what resources had to be expended to get there. I wish there was a video game that had a rhythm similar to chess.

          • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
            2·
            9 months ago

            The secret boss in Inscryption Act 3 had a similar feel, but the permutations were much lower. I was constantly on the verge of defeat, but pulled it out not by getting better cards, but by being more tactical with the ones I had.

            I also like Europa Universalis IV for the same reason. I like starting as a small country near a large one (starting as an Irish minor is my favorite) and strategically growing in the right ways to survive. There’s a ton of knobs to turn and valid strategies, and everything can blow up with a couple mistakes.

          • Valmond@lemmy.mindoki.com
            1·
            9 months ago

            Nothing beats playing a human being though (which a video game allows ofc) it allows, at least at my low level, a lot of manuvers depending on who you (think you) play against.

  • NeryK@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    2·
    9 months ago

    Here goes mine roughly ordered by date of completion:

    God of War (PC): Excellent action game all around. You can see where all that AAA budget goes.

    Doors: Paradox (PC): Charming indie puzzle game, easy and chill.

    Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves collection (PC): Finally an Uncharted game playable with mouse and keyboard.

    The Dungeon Of Naheulbeuk: The Amulet Of Chaos - Back to the Futon DLC (PC): Expansion-sized DLC, more of the same and brings the story to a close.

    The Division 2 & Warlords of New York (PC): Full 3 player co-op campaign and expansion playthrough. Not a huge fan, but enjoyable with friends.

    Half-Life: Alyx (PC, Valve Index): My second full playthrough. Still amazing, still the very best PC VR has to offer.

    Kena: Bridge of Spirits (PC): Beautiful and bittersweet. Not too hard but some optional challenges are.

    The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom (Switch): Went in without much hype, and spent 200h over 2 months going at it. A strange case where the expansion is bigger and better than the base game 😉

    Risk of Rain 2 (PC): Managed a couple successful runs in co-op then stopped. Roguelikes are not my thing, but co-op games are.

    Planet of Lana (Xbox): Short and sweet puzzle platformer. Not high fidelity visuals but quite nice nonetheless.

    Ratchet and Clank 2016 (PS4): Played this anticipating to play Rift Apart later on. Very good for a newcomer to the franchise like me.

    Remnant 2 (PC): Excellent sci-fi Souls-like with very good replayability. Great both in solo and co-op (did ~2.5 playthroughs).

    Guild Wars 2 Secrets of the Obscure (PC): Fourth expansion for this 11-year old MMORPG. Best in the genre as far as I am concerned.

    Cyberpunk 2077 (PC): Been waiting for years until I heard the game was finally “finished”. Still encountered some jankiness but a compelling and memorable experience nonetheless.

    Marvel’s Spider-man Remastered (PC): Had it on PS4 already for the kids for a couple of years, bought it again on PC on sale to get the best experience.

    Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart (PC): Gorgeous and bombastic fun, strongly recommend. Surprisingly it’s a sequel of the main series, not of the 2016 reboot.

    Jusant (Xbox/PC): Kind of a vertical walking simulator. Eerie and original, does not overstay its welcome.

    Dead Space 2023 (PC): Had bounced off the original pretty quickly back in the day. This remake got me hooked all the way to the end.

    Endless Dungeon (PC): Odd mix of action rpg, tower defense and roguelike. Not that great, but its co-op support picks up the slack.

    Marvel’s Spider-man: Miles Morales (PC): Not as good as the original in my opinion, but tighter and shorter.

    Operation Tango (PC): Co-op only short and unusual first-person puzzler.

    Also, I will likely be done with Resident Evil 2 2019 and Cocoon before the year is over.

  • paddirn@lemmy.worldEnglish
    2·
    9 months ago

    The only substantial one I remember beating this year was Outer Wilds +DLC. Beautiful game that’s like nothing else I’ve played before, though I’ve got leads on other games in the same vein. Otherwise, my young kids have been getting big into co-op games, so we’re playing those alot. We never really make much progress though, so we just have alot of hours in party games.

  • SuperSpruce@lemmy.ml
    2·
    9 months ago

    Gosh, I’ve realized I don’t finish games lol. I’ve put many hours in Forza Horizon, Factorio, Pokemon, Cities Skylines, and incremental games but here are the ones I actually beat in 2023 so far, although I’m about to beat Pokemon Scarlet so I’ll include that too.

    1. Pokemon Sun (cartridge). (4/10). Why am I rating this so low? It’s my least favorite Pokemon game I’ve played. I finished it this year, but started it in 2018. The game leans way too heavy on the story and not in the gameplay. The game felt like a huge downgrade from OR/AS. It also plays incredibly slow. Not touching Gen 7 again. The battles were nice and intense with enough difficulty to excite me though.

    2. Chip Defense (8/10). You can find it on F-droid, and it’s free. It’s a little tower defense game with a theme on CPUs and instructions. It took me a few hours to beat all the levels and it hooked me.

    3. Pokemon White (emulator), limited pokemon center challenge. (9.3/10). I absolutely love Gen 5 and I did a challenge a lot like a Nuzlocke but more interesting and far less stressful. You can only catch the first pokemon on each route, and any non-forced heal would cost 5000*2^(number of prior heals done) poke dollars. That way, I could have a pokemon faint and not have it be the end of my 40 hour playthrough. I actually (unintentionally) lost to Ghetsis at the end but I planned for that and had enough money for one more heal, and then beat him the 2nd time.

    4. Factorio Bob’s/Angel’s (hardcore Factorio mod). (9.5/10). Do you like Factorio but want 10x more complicated recipes that include lots of byproducts to deal with? Then this mod is for you! It took me 123 hours to launch a rocket, and apparently that’s pretty quick. The base is one huge pile of spaghetti with a 90 lane bus split into three.

    5. Pokémon Scarlet (cartridge). (8/10). I haven’t quite gotten to the credits yet but I’ve beaten the Top Champion so I’m very close. This game is one of the most fun pokemon games imo despite being extremely flawed. The open world is a huge breath of fresh air after the last 4 gens being 4 big lines. The frame drops are not the really annoying thing about this game, it’s the cutscenes and long battle animations. (Gen 7 was even worse with this). The exploration isn’t groundbreaking but I love how random encounters were ditched for overworld pokemon (even with the lamentable draw distance), that you could run into and instantly fight without a 10s cutscene playing. Trainers are finally all optional. I don’t play for the story but it’s one of the better ones for pokemon games. Having multiple arcs at the same time keeps things interesting for me. The game isn’t the most difficult (probably average+ for pokemon standards) but I made it satisfyingly hard on myself when forcing myself to comply with set mode, no items in battle, and trying to win while underleveled. Also the music is a masterpiece, bravo Giacomo.

    • verycoolusername@lemm.ee
      1·
      9 months ago

      Hello fellow nuzlocke player. Have you tried any of the Pokemon ROM hacks? They might give you something new / more exciting to play.

      • SuperSpruce@lemmy.ml
        1·
        9 months ago

        I’ve played a bit of the Pokemon Adventures Red version romhack, but never completed that as it wasn’t particularly interesting. What ROM hacks would you recommend? I’d like a challenge but nothing crazy.

  • Montagge@kbin.social
    2·
    9 months ago

    Axiom Verge

    Technically Eldenring sorta. I’m sorry I’m not fighting that sorry excuse for an end boss to finish an already weak story.

  • idunnololz@lemmy.world
    2·
    9 months ago

    The best part of playing the witness was it helped me discover Joseph Anderson. I don’t really care for his video essays (a tad on the pretentious side for me) but his live play throughs are gold.

  • Ech@lemm.eeEnglish
    1·
    9 months ago

    (Possible Minor Spoilers ahead)

    I’ve half played more games than I’ve finished, but I had a decent enough track record this year, mostly with indie games. In no particular order:

    Collapsed to not take up too much space

    • Hollow Knight - Was a replay, but I got all the way to the Complete Soul achievement, which I’m proud of.

    • Deathloop - Interesting game. I really enjoyed the Groundhog Day style mechanics and had fun achievement hunting.

    • Pineapple on Pizza - Not much of a challenge to finish, but it stuck out to me as an interesting play. Very short, interesting game.

    • Kingdom Eighties - Bounced of the other Kingdom games for various reasons, but this one really caught my interest. The 80s aesthetic and “Kids fighting monsters” story really appealed to me.

    • Beholder 1 & 3 - Interesting games. Didn’t enjoy 2 enough to finish it.

    • Dead Rising 4 - After hearing so much hyperbole about how bad this one was, I decided to finally get around to playing it and, while it was definitely not as interesting or fun to play as DR 2 for me, it was fine. After reading up on some of the dev history behind it, its foibles are pretty understandable, imo.

    • Marvel’s Spider-Man & Miles Morales - Fun games. I have my own complaints about them here and there, but having been a huge fan of the PS2 Spider-Man 2 game, I’m just happy to have a modern web slinger game in an open world. Eager to play the sequel if it ever gets ported to PC.

    • Dredge - Fun little indie fishing game. Short, but just long enough for my attention span with games.

    • Dave the Diver - Same comments as Dredge, with the additional critique that, while the plethora of mini-games within it are interesting, some feel like they’re just there to add more onto it. Interested to see what the Dredge combo-DLC entails.

    • Resident Evil VII - Not usually a fan of horror games, but this one toed the line just enough to not over-spook me out of it. Having seen some playthroughs, I wasn’t too surprised by anything, but it was fun to playthrough myself.

    • Factorio - Put this one off for a long time because it looked too “technical” to appeal to me, but I decided to give it a shot as a different kind of survival sim and got hooked. I didn’t go too deep with it, but I did finish the story missions and might hop back in when the big update comes out, which looks interesting.

    • Power Wash Sim - “Completing” it is a bit of a stretch, but I did finish all the missions. Interesting, mindless little game. Funny to say that I enjoyed a cleaning game, hah.

    • Pikmin 4 - Never had the chance to play any of the other Pikmin games, but I did enjoy this one. My only real complaint is that, for a game that has the player unlocking abilities up to the very end, it could really do with a New Game+ mode because all that effort felt like a bit of a waste since there’s not really anything to do after getting everything unlocked.

    • Grounded - Played this one while it was in beta and thought it was pretty neat. Decided to give it another go now that it’s complete and really enjoyed it. Fun little crafting-survival game with surprisingly complex combat. Probably not a great game for anyone that’s doesn’t do well with insects.

    • LotR: Return to Moria - More intrigued by the setting than anything, this game was fine enough. To be honest, the gameplay wasn’t particularly great and it had so many bugs, but I did finish it through all of that.

    • Heretic’s Fork - For a combo of genre’s that I generally just avoid (deckbuilders and tower defense), this was pretty enjoyable. Not a super long game to get through, and good to just hop on and get a few runs in.

  • gawdahm@sh.itjust.works
    1·
    9 months ago

    I recently just completed NieR Automata and then immediately played NieR Replicant straight after. I originally bought Automata in 2019 but it didn’t click until this year when I tried it out again, for some reason. I don’t think I completed any other games this year. I was primarily playing Overwatch and fighting games (got into Strive this year).