### **Yakuza: Like a Dragon** ![[Robin's Games of the Year 2023-20240102104248139.png]] I love this fucking game. I can’t say that I slept on it at all because I’ve been playing it sort of on and off for the past like two years or something? I’m very bad at completing video games. But, I have enjoyed so much of it. It’s actually moved up to being one of my favorites of all time. I don’t know that it’s mechanically that much different from any other turn-based RPG, but something about it just hooks me in. If you need any proof of how much I love it, know that on beating it, I had logged supposedly 109 hours of playtime. That’s obviously padded with things like bathroom breaks and getting distracted, but still, it can’t be THAT inflated. And I have nowhere near completed everything! What have I been doing? I don’t know! And I don’t care! I just had a lot of fun!  What I particularly loved about this game is that early on, any time I started to feel like things got a little stale, the game introduced a new system to interact with or a way to alter gameplay that got me re-invigorated to play. And while the game doesn’t do this through the entire game, the fact that there are SO MANY things and systems to interact with means that if I am feeling kind of burnt out on one aspect, I can just take a break and do something else. For example, I recently did the Kart races for the first time and now I just want to complete that. I was on chapter 10 or 11 out of 15 before I started that! Amazing.  My only complaint is that once you get past the Big Fight with Majima and Saejima, I feel like the boss fights get to be a little grindy. Like, outside of Kazuma, the bosses after that just felt like huge HP pools that you had to slowly whittle down. As an example, what I’ll call the real final boss (I don’t wanna spoil it if you haven’t played and want to) would take over 1k damage and that’d be maybe 10% of his HP? And that fits with the inspiration of the game. I replayed the Dragon Quest a few years ago, after getting into Like a Dragon, and it’s about as grindy as I remember. I even tried to play the second one and gave up because it’s so grindy that I was tired of it. And I think I can sort of work my way into understanding it for Like a Dragon. Taking into account that there are numerous jobs to master *as well as* character levels, it makes sense that you would have to have essentially all classes and characters at an extremely high level to really put the hurt on some of the later bosses. And despite that, I’m ready to go back in. I fully intend to go back in the future and get that 100%. It feels imminently reachable and Yakuza 7 is a game that, every time I pick it up again, I’m asking myself why I put it down in the first place.  ### **Gravity Rush** ![[Robin's Games of the Year 2023-20240102104232054.png]] What can I even say? This game fucking rules. It’s pretty rare that I feel like trying to platinum a game and even rarer that I follow through with that idea. But, I had so much fun in this game, overall, that I was honestly kind of sad to run out of game. But hey, there’s Gravity Rush 2! ### **Wo Long** ![[Robin's Games of the Year 2023-20240102104221199.png]] Mint and I were hyped about this game basically the second we heard about it, and it pretty much lives up to it. I do wish there were a little more in terms of like the skill tree. One of the coolest things in Nioh 2 was the skill trees and the fact that you just have spells in this one that you can learn all of (though it’s impossible you’d be able to cast them all) feels like a bit of a let down in that way. But, honestly, this is a minor complaint in comparison to how much I love it. I literally played the demo while I had COVID (3 years before it got me) and it was insane. The second I picked it up after feeling better, it all clicked into place and the feel is, overall, incredible. I wish I vibed a little more with some of more of the weapons, but that’s just a personal thing. Also, I should mention that this game barely ran on my computer—if you’re in Mint’s guilded server, you know what I mean—and I still had a great time! Like, the amount of glitching that prevented me from playing the game was relatively minor, with one notable exception. Also, with the DLC, they added some new weapons, namely the fist weapons and that shit goes hard as hell. Absolute blast to play with. ### **Nier Replicant** ![[Robin's Games of the Year 2023-20240102104156995.png]] I wanted to play this way back on the PS3, when it was Nier (technically Gestalt) and never got around to it when I had the system. Being able to play it now, I really enjoyed it. I think that there’s something really interesting going on with the dungeons in the game, particularly when it comes to the forest dungeon. It almost feels like each of the major dungeons in the first half are kind of weirdly tuned to a different genre of game almost. Like, the desert level is almost strictly a platformer/puzzle game. Several sections of the factory are like a top-down action game. And, of course, the forest dungeons which is a straight up text adventure. Now, realistically, there’s probably a mixture of budgetary and comedic reasons for the forest to be Like That, but I just think that the result is incredibly interesting. I’ll say that I regret going through all the endings back-to-back. Especially because getting through the 4th ending felt kind of grueling and while I went and got the fifth ending, going back to the very start to do so hurt me. Also, finding all the weapons in this game is CAKE compared to Drakengard. I never actually managed to get the last one there because there is one level that is… disgusting. Glad they made the endings less of a pain in subsequent games. Also, ending E, while it kind of undoes ending D, lowkey kicks fucking ass, mostly because it lets you play as Kaine, whom I love for being a foul-mouthed angry lady.  ### **Bomb Rush Cyberfunk** ![[Robin's Games of the Year 2023-20240102104135756.png]] This game goes hard. The aesthetics here are incredibly on point. I’ll probably never 100% this game, I just don’t think I’m good enough at it but that won’t stop me from continuing to play this game whenever I wanna just kind of vibe. The soundtrack is insanely good and it’s just fun to kind of skate around and fuck about. Also, the character designs are incredible. It’s apparently easy to mod in your own character, which I lowkey wanna do. ### **Scarlet Nexus** ![[Robin's Games of the Year 2023-20240102104116332.png]] This was an honorable mention last year because I hadn’t beaten it yet and as a personal thing, I’ll only include games I’ve completed on these lists. Anyways, great time. Having a hard time thinking of how to sort of sum this game up, but I had a blast with it. Kasane kicks ass and I can’t believe I ended up really loving the damn nerd meta-gamer guy who kind of serves as your rival. Actually incredible writing. And that final boss fight was just so fucking cool. Like, god damn. What I will say is that ultimately, I feel like it dropped some threads throughout (heh). There’s some sort of implied government conspiracy stuff that just… never gets really explained/solved? Like, there’s a subplot that people are being turned into Others, intentionally and for them to maintain humanity, they must eat human brains?? Again, this is mentioned and talked about but not really resolved. But, the core of it is the time travel and the stuff with Kasane and Yuito and that stuff kicks ass. I’ll say that some of the side quests are unnecessarily painful to complete; having to kill certain enemies with certain abilities can just be obnoxious and so, that part is not my favorite. The last thing I’ll say is that the visual customizations are delightful, which, since the game has a native photo mode, means it’s super easy to take screenshots. See above.  ### **Venba** ![[Robin's Games of the Year 2023-20240102104055473.png]] Honestly, there’s only so much I can say about this game. It’s incredibly short and super cool. It hits me right in the feelings. I think it’d be a lot of fun on a tablet, it kind of feels like Handle with Care in trying to emulate the sort of tactile sense of doing the thing with your hands. Fun fact: Venba means Poetry in Tamil. Go play it! There’s also something to be said about the narrative that it creates around culture and how PoC interact with or try to assimilate to white culture and I won’t say anything about it because others can speak to it in ways that I simply cannot. If you’re curious for a couple of thoughts, go read this [post](https://cohost.org/mint/post/3993038-this-goes-so-fucking) ### **Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade** ![[Robin's Games of the Year 2023-20240102104044469.png]] Thanks to Mint and Retrogamecorps, I got back into handheld gaming this year. I picked up the Miyoo Mini Plus. It’s been really nice as a way to unwind on my way home from work via public transit or a more portable option if I’m staying over at a friend’s place. Basically, it’s a tiny emulator and one joy is that it’s allowed me to go back and play games I missed when I had the actual systems on the machine. So, I checked out the GBA Fire Emblem, which in the US was just called Fire Emblem, but is actually Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade. Anywho, this game was a lot of fun! I love tactics games and Fire Emblem seems to have always done those pretty well. What’s been super cool going back is seeing how just incredible the sprite-work is in these games. Mint said they’re the best in the business and I agree! Also, having the three Lords was cool as hell. Lyn’s easily the MVP of that game, but Hector also kicks ass. Shoutout to his brother, man can hit me up anytime. Also, I said this on Mint’s guilded, but the way that Generals attack in these games was much cooler than they are in recent 3D entries.  ### **Granblue Fantasy Versus: Rising** ![[Robin's Games of the Year 2023-20240102104033030.png]] Okay, so fighting games, right? They’re cool as hell and I feel like in recent years, they’ve just blown up in terms of aesthetics? Like, I think fighting game devs realized at some point that the best way to get people to play your fighting game is just to make the sickest looking characters you can. Anyways, this game has some fairly standard anime designs, but the mechanics of it are so much fun and it’s the most invested I’ve gotten in a fighting game, probably ever? Like, I enjoyed Strive, but getting into it as late as I did, the scene didn’t feel as active, and I didn’t feel like I could get in at my appropriate skill level. But this game just came out, so the scene is poppin’ and I’m having a great time. I still get a li’l salty when a round goes real bad, but I’m trying to start thinking “okay, what’d I do wrong here?” Sometimes I know, sometimes I don’t. But, more often than not, I’m having fun. ### **Yakuza 0** ![[Robin's Games of the Year 2023-20240102104024048.png]] That’s right!! Two Yakuza games on the list! More next year, baybeeee!! LaD was my first and this was my second, really. What an absolute fucking blast of a game. I had so much fun playing this. The style changes, the Heat actions, getting to play as Majima, it was all great. I put 80 hours into this game and didn’t even realize. I’m planning to go back and finish off the businesses that you can do. Gonna do that with premium adventure so I can put Majima and Kiryu in some goofy ass outfits.  On a separate note, the story in this game was fucking incredible. I won’t spoil a *checks notes* 8 year old game, but Majima’s story, in particular is so fucking heartbreaking. And it’s fun to look at Majima in this game versus any other appearance where he is the craziest fucker you’ve ever met. Here, he’s so incredibly under control, it almost creates cognitive dissonance. Your tutorial fight with him is simply dodging a guest attacking you at his cabaret. Check it out!  ### **Super Mario RPG (Switch)** ![[Robin's Games of the Year 2023-20240102103942015.png]] What is there to say? One of my favorite games remastered for the Switch. Yoko Shimomura put the whole Shimomussy into the soundtrack and it fucking rules. ‘nuff said. --- ## Honorable mentions: ### **The Messenger** ![[Robin's Games of the Year 2023-20240102103915199.png]] So, you [[Sea of Stars Review|may remember that I wrote a review of Sea of Stars]] in which I have a lot of things to say about the Main Character. This is the game that Sabotage Studios made first. It’s totally divorced from Sea of Stars in many ways, but there are a lot of nods from one to the other. I recently went back to it because I wanted to see that connective tissue, what little there is (although the DLC is supposed to firm that up a bit?). And I had a lot of fun! It’s much less self-serious than Sea of Stars and an action platformer. Not really game of the year material, but a lot of fun! What I’ll say about Sabotage is that I appreciate how both of their games seem to be interested in the breaking of cycles. Any time you have a game where the world has a sort of cyclical nature, the question is “why this cycle? What makes this one stand out?” And while I don’t like the ultimate answer in Sea of Stars, I think playing with it is fun and The Messenger’s answer fits pretty well with the tone of the overall game. ### **Like a Dragon Ishin** ![[Robin's Games of the Year 2023-20240102103907478.png]] Samurai yakuza game is an idea I would not have come up with but damn if I won’t play it for many, many hours. Includes the most hilarious version of ~~kiryu~~ Ryoma not killing anyone since he will stab and SHOT people in the face. But hey, that’s video games! Honorable mention territory because it’s my personal rule if I ain’t beat it, it don’t 100% count.  ### **Eastward** ![[Robin's Games of the Year 2023-20240102103856403.png]] I feel like I’m just starting out on this game, but it’s incredibly charming and the little girl that is effectively your adopted daughter is the cutest. I love her dearly and will kill everyone in this room if anything happens to her. Just look at her.  ### **Gravity Rush 2** ![[Robin's Games of the Year 2023-20240102103845146.png]] I haven’t beaten it yet, I’m sorry, Mint.[^1] Although it’s strong anti-cop sentiments out of the fucking gate absolutely rule. I gotta put more time in. ### **Lethal Company** ![[Robin's Games of the Year 2023-20240102103837875.png]] Just a good time w/friends, tbh. It’s largely been displaced by Granblue, but we had some fun! ### Baldur’s Gate III ![[Robin's Games of the Year 2023-20240102103823458.png]] I wasn’t going to include this because you don’t need anyone else telling you how good this game is at this point, but I had an encounter recently that was the most D&D dumb assery bullshit I’ve ever seen, so that really turned me around. You can interrupt two monsters goin’ at it and they WILL fight you. For me, that meant one twink running as fast as he could back to the party, which is peak D&D for me. Pictured above: Jephiroth. [his theme](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F4M_K9iMo_g). [^1]: Editor's Note: Apology NOT ACCEPTED!!!! I AM IN YOUR WALLS-