A video game review site finally turned 5 years old today. Very big day for me. Five years of playing video games, writing about them, and improving as a person. It’s something I’m very proud of. Here’s a link to a full message I wrote to celebrate this occasion.

So a little fangame came out recently called Undertale Yellow and it was big enough to stand alongside the original game. Gave it a shot and yeah it's pretty good. Now, is it exactly fair to criticize a fangame? Probably not, but you are inviting comparisons to the original so here goes. Undertale Yellow i mostly understands what made Undertale so amazing. It's a prequel set years before the original, and follows an new cast of characters and story. Clover journeys to Mt. Ebott to find five missing humans. He discovers things are gonna be a lot harder than he expected when he gets dumped deeper into the world. All the characters you meet are likable, have fun personalities, and the game takes you on a wild ride. The combat is much harder than the original game, but this brings up my biggest gripe. The game feels too hard. Like they really wanted it to be a crazy bullet hell where the screen is constantly being flooded with hazards. Let me clarify that I have nothing against difficult games. I love myself a challenge, but no normal person is gonna be able to do this without going insane. They did patch in an easy mode, but still. Nobody plays Undertale for the combat though. They play it for the story, which starts out strong and gets iffy near to end if you did pacifist like me. Characters just ramble on to you about their problems and overtime you stop caring. Like you know where it's going and you wish they just speed up. I could go on, but I don't want to say too much. I think this is a good game worth checking out. Here's a link to my full written review.

Here are my top twenty games of 2023 as well as a top twenty list for the non-2023 games I played. There's a list for games I'll try to catch up on during the new year and games I'll just assume are good. For those of you who can't read the slides here's the main list typed out.

Octopath Traveler 2

Lies of P

Blasphemous 2

Chants of Sennaar

Dredge

Venba

Cocoon

9 Years of Shadows

Remnant 2

Dead Space Remake

Resident Evil 4 Remake

Pizza Tower

Gravity Circuit

Amnesia: The Bunker

Star Wars Jedi: Survivor

Jusant

Lunacid

Undertale Yellow

The Legend of Zelda: Tears of The Kingdom

Warhammer 40K: Boltgun

My feelings of Undertale have swayed back and forth over the years. On one hand it's impressive what Toby Fox managed to accomplish over the last few years, but on the other hand is truly one of the best indie games ever made? That and does it have the best form of moral choice in video games? The answer to both questions is "no" but that doesn't mean Undertale is bad. I just gave the game a chance recently and it managed to comfort me during a time of stress few weeks ago. What makes Undertale is not just how it teaches the player kindness, but how it presents itself and does the most it can during it's short runtime. The characters, humor, and tiny little moments do the best they can to connect you to the world. It's true ending feels like a thank you note for witnessing everything it had to offer. Undertale is a masterpiece and I don't have to say anything more besides that. Here's a link to my full written review.

Cocoon is one of the best puzzle games of the year. It sits alongside Chants of Sennaar for not just being incredibly well designed, but innovative. You control this weird little bug creature and must venture through several worlds. The story is pretty much nonexsistent, but at times the presentation managed to surprise me. Showing me a few interesting scenes and letting my imagination fill in the blanks. The real meat are the puzzles and they are mindblowing. The whole idea of worlds with worlds is interesting, and how you enter between these worlds seamlessly is stunning. Despite puzzles getting bigger with time I never found myself confused. I'd soon figure it out and it felt oh so satisfying. The game is not long, but it maintains good pacing and moment to moment gameplay. Cocoon will surely blow your expectations much like what it did to me. Here's a link to my full review of Cocoon as well as a short coverage of Venba near the end.

I'm really glad I gave Live A Live a chance. It's one of most unique JRPGs I've played and in some ways served as an inspiration for the Octopath Traveler 1 and 2, two of my favorite games. In this game you follow eight different protagonists. Each with their own stories and face different forms of evil. The writing can be corny at time, but I really enjoyed the story overall. Each of the heroes have something to teach and the final sections of the game tie all these narratives together. How evil remains prevalent throughout history, but love and hope is what helps us triumph over it. Combat is about knowing where to position yourself. Everyone is shifting around the battlefield and trying to line themselves up for attacks. However, I do think the game is easy for the most part up until the last section. It is well designed and above all things fun, but a little more could have been done. The game isn't as long as most RPGs, but that may make it hard purchase for anyone who wants a game loaded with content. These sound like major flaws, but trust me when I say this game is a must play for JRPG fans. It's beautiful, it'll take you to weird places, and in my opinion it's a masterpiece. Here's a link to my full written review of Live A Live.

Remnant 2 is more of what made the first game great but better. The world has been taken over by the Root, a species of demonic tree creatures, and you must stop them. You'll travel across multiple dimensions, encounter weird characters, and engage with conflicts bigger than the one you're already facing. Main plot is kind of bad, but the interdimensional odyssey and side stories within each world is what redeems it for me. Combat loop is great as it blends third person shooting with soulslike mechanics. Every gun is satisfying to wield, and now there's a respec system so if you find a new weapon you'd rather use you can get your upgrade materials back to pour them into it. There's an actual class system now called archetypes, and each archetype has unique skills and perks. You can use two archetypes at once and this creates a wide range of build variety. Exploration is much better with secrets lying around every corner, and the game encourages multiplayer as you and a group of buds tackle difficult bosses. Of course the difficulty spikes and some may find it too similar to the original. I think it makes enough quality of life improvements and changes to make it feel like an extraordinary sequel. Here's a full link to my review of Remnant 2.

9 Years of Shadows is a beautiful pixelart metroidvania and one of the most underrated indies of 2023. The land has been cursed for nine years. Several innocents died with two being Europa's parents. So she trained since then and ventures into a castle where the curse originated from. She gets killed by a mad demon, but is resurrected by a magical teddy bear. Color is restored to the world and using a collection of armor from the gods she'll fight back against these forces. The combat loop is fun as you different colored attacks to pierce through enemy defense. Forcing you to switch on the fly. Each armor set also has unique skills used to traverse the environment which creates fun platforming challlenges. Exploration is fun and boss fights are highlights of your journey. With tons of visual spectacle and making good use of the upgrades you've gained. The pixelart is gorgeous of course, soundtrack is good, and while the story feels ignored at times I think it's enjoyable and has good character development. There are some difficulty spikes and the final boss is chaotic for the sake of being chaotic, but the game succeeds at what it wants to do and wraps up when it needs to. Here's a full link to my review of 9 Years of Shadows.

Chants of Sennaar is one of the best puzzle games I've played since Obra Dinn and easily one of the best of 2023. A red hooded figure awakens to find themselves at the base of tower. Said tower houses four different societies, each having their own language and hate each other. Your goal is to ascend to the top, but you have to deal with each four societies and learn their language to move forward. You explore, solve puzzles if you can, and uncover symbols by speaking to NPCs or reading signs. The symbols go into a journal and from there you use deductive reasoning to figure out what certain words may mean. Analyzation and environmental hints is what will slowly help you deduce what these words mean. Guess them right and these words magically lock into place confirming what they mean. It's a really clever system and it evolves as you use these words to solve puzzles. Art direction is splendid and while I won't spoil it the message lying at the end is powerful. I don't have complaints with this one. This game is a masterpiece and you owe yourself to try it out. Here's a link to my full review of Chants of Sennaar.

Amnesia: The Bunker is the fourth installment in the Amnesia series and the greatest game Frictional has ever made. It moves away from the run and hide formula for traditional survival horror, and combines it with immersive-sim elements to create the most innovative entry survival horror has seen in awhile. You are a French soldier in WWI who got knocked out during an ambush, and awaken to find the underground bunker abandoned and a monster roaming around. You must escape, so you search fives areas to find the tools needed. The monster is constantly waltzing around and if it grabs you once you die instantly. You can fight back, but you can't kill the monster and overtime it becomes immune to bullets. What makes the game unique is the amount of choices and mechanics on offer. Your handgun can shoot off locks or set off red barrels. Explosives could be used to destroy doors locked from the other side, and different environmental hazards can be used to ward off the monster. Your flashlight has to be reeved up creating noise which attracts creatures, but you can craft torches or flares. Which then can be used to ignite gas, but gas is needed to power a generator to provide light to chase away the monster. It's a very well designed game that pushes you to engage with it's systems. It's not for everyone and it'll do whatever it can to kill you quickly, but a fun experience that doesn't overstay it's welcome. Here's a link to my full review of Amnesia: The Bunker.

Before the success of the Soulsborne series, FromSoftware was well known for King's Field. No game has managed to replicate the feel of King's Field since the last entry, but recently one has managed to do so. Lunacid is the first worthy successor to King's Field. You are a prisoner dumped thousands of feet below ground into a complex cave system. You must venture back to the top while also figuring out what went wrong with the world. What the game nails best is the atmosphere. The sound design, emptiness, and sense of lonliness is what makes exploring the world of Lunacid fun. Getting lost is the best kind of immersion, but that comes at a cost because Lunacid does not always give a good idea of where you should go. You may end up dinking around for an hour or two when the way forward is starring you right in the face. I had to look a guide midway through and a lot of the secrets in this game give you those, "How the heck was I suppose to figure that out on my own?" moments. Still, this is a great game and the solo developer behind this should be proud. Here's a link to my full review on Lunacid.

So a lot of the time I forget that I have a Tumblr account. It's not that I hate using Tumblr, because honestly getting people to read my game reviews is easier on here than other social media platforms. However, I don't post on here often so that's why every so often I just leave a bunch of links one week and bugger off. That' why I'm putting up a link to my Twitter/X account now. I use that way more often, like a ton of artwork on their, and tend to leave posts about games. Feel free to follow me there if you want to.

Cyberpunk 2077 is the most OKAY game I've ever played. It is not a bad game but it is not a very good game either, and the more I think about it the more I realize there's a lot of wasted potential. The story is good enough to keep you pushing till the end. You meet a lot of likable characters, you sympathize with the struggles they are going through, and your journey to figure out who you want to be works. However, the actual main plot of trying to stop your death doesn't work when the game has a false sense of urgency. You can bumble around the world as much as you want with no consequences. In fact, there doesn't seem to be any consequences in general for any of your actions. One mission had me trespass upon a militech facility and I shot the entire place up. I exited and the game just pretended that I didn't commit mass murder. You have tons of stats and perks to level up, but the investment in specific builds doesn't feel rewarding. Every quest was designed to accommodate every playstyle, but in doing so you realize everyone plays similarly to each other. I do not understand why they needed a loot rarity system because it makes every weapon you obtain less meaningful as a lot of the guns are just copies of each other. There's so much to break down. Again, I do not think this is a bad game. CDPR put a lot of work into fixing this game up and if you were to buy it now I'd say you are getting your money's worth. A majority of people will enjoy what Cyberpunk 2077 has to offer, but it's not for me. If what we have now in 2023 is okay then I cannot imagine how this game was when it first released. Here's a link to my full essay on why Cyberpunk 2077 is just OKAY.

The original Mega Man series was one of favorites growing up, but I always wondered why imitating the formula was so hard. Finally we have a game that understands what made Mega Man great and serves as a successor. Gravity Circuit is the best platformer of 2023. Kai, one of the nine Circuit users, awakens from a long lumber to find the Virus Army he fought years ago has returned and are now being led by his now corrupt comrades. He must stop his comrades from causing further harm, stop the one leading the Virus Army, and save the city. Once you beat the first stage you have eight different Circuit users to go after and this is where the fun begins. Each stage has it's own themes, mechanics, and a boss lying at the end. Movement took me a bit to get used to as it's more on the Mega Man X side, but it's really fun. Dashing through each stage. hopping off walls, grappling off ceilings, and seeing how fast you can go. Combat is melee focused instead of projectiles based and the energy system which allows you to perform special maneuvers if you beat down foes encourages you to play aggressively. The game gets hard at times, but I found it rewarding when finally overcome with epic boss fights lying at the end of each stage. The game is great and although the perks and different combat arts you can swap in and out could have been thought of better this is a good understanding of Mega Man. Here's a link to my full review of Gravity Circuit.

Blasphemous 2 is an incredible sequel to the 2019 macabre hit and has now become one of the new heights of the metroidvania genre. The Penitent One has awakened from a long slumber and now must journey across vstodia to reach the highest chapel and destroy the son of the Miracle before it takes total control of the land. The story much like the original is interestingly told with peculilar NPCs to meet across your journey and bits of lore to piece together. Exploring many religious themes mainly the idea of when religion goes to far, or at least that's what I assume. Real meat of Blasphemous 2 is the gameplay which has made a heap of improvements since the first. The world is bigger than ever with many secrets lying about and areas finding ways to loop back into places you already explored. Combat is better and you now have three different weapons to use. However, they not only serve as different fighting styles but also tools to interact with the world. Creating fun puzzles and platforming challenges which is something the first game lacked. There's now also metroidvania styled upgrades such as double jumping and air dashing, and these movement options make traversing Cvstodia and the feeling of opening new paths really satisfying. Bosses are less gimmick based than the original and more on the skill side, but I had a really fun time fighting them and they never became unfair. Pixel art is better than ever as Blasphemous 2 contains more environmental variety and color. Blasphemous 2 is so much better than I had expected. I put it up there alongside Hollow Knight and Ender Lilies for being one of the genres best as it's a masterpiece in design and one of the best 2023 has to offer. Here's a link to my full review.

Lies of P is the best soulslike I've ever played. It is one of my game of the year contenders and can easily match the quality of FromSoft titles. You play as P, a humanoid puppet who has awoken to the aftermath of the Puppet Frenzy. The City of Krat, a once bustling utopia, has been reduced to empty streets filled with bodies and it's your job to figure out what caused the frenzy. The story and world draw heavy inspiration from the story of Pinocchio, and it's pretty well done mature adaptation. Seeing what ideas they connect from Pinnochio and Soulsborne into the game while also forming an identity of it's own. It's a really intriguing narrative and it's more comprehensible than most soulslikes out there. One that explores what it means to be human. Gameplay-wise it's incredibly well designed and there's a lot of things I actually prefer more so than the Souls series. There's a weapon assembly system that allows you to swap the heads and handles of weapons to change their moveset, attack damage, and stat scaling. So you are free to experiment with what you have and thankfully upgrade materials become plentiful by the end. You have the ability to refill a healing charge if you are out if you perform well enough which pushes you have an active playstyle and makes boss fights more intense. There's a rally mechanic like Bloodborne tied to blocking instead of getting hit, there's parrying, and even though sometimes the game feels parry focused it doesn't mean that's your only option. Dodging works, blocking still works, and you have to alternate between moves if you want to survive. There's just so much I want to talk about. Absolutely love this game and it has quickly become one of my favorites. If you love soulslike or the Soulsborne series then I strongly recommend this masterpiece. Here's a link to my full review of Lies of P.

Resident Evil 4 Remake is not only a pretty faithful remake to the timeless horror classic, but also one of the best entries in the franchise and one of the best Triple A games of 2023. After the tragedy that was the Racoon City incident, Leon S Kennedy became a skilled agent willing to fight anything the Umbrella Corporation does next. His latest mission requires him to save the US president's daughter after a kidnapping, but he gets infected with a mysterious virus and realizes this won't be such an easy assignment. The plot is basically a mature retelling of the original and some people may not like how they got rid of the humor and campiness. I personally like it a lot more as characters are better written and the story still manages to be interesting despite it being kinda absurd at times. The combat is also better than ever. Enemies hounding you at all sides and you trying to mow them down while also getting to where you need to go. However, resources are sparse and you have to make every bullet count as making a couple minor mistakes may lead to instant death. There's side quests and tons of treasure to be found now which reward exploration, and despite the game being the most challenging RE game to date it's the most fun and satisfying to play. Your guns get stronger with each penny spent towards them and the game is highly replayable due it's combat loop and the amount of tools to experiment with. The game is visually impressive and knows when to take things slowly for the horror and kick everything back into full gear. RE4 Remake is a masterpiece. It does have some flaws and it's not my favorite game of 2023, but you should absolutely check it out at some pint. Here's a link to my full review of RE4 Remake.