KizuRai's Top 10 Games of 2023
Hello!
My name is Rai, and I’ve been given the opportunity to share my top 10 games that I’ve played this year. I’m not a “recent games” type of person so some of these were probably released ages ago that I finally got around to playing. I have a backlog that reaches the sky and when I tackle it down, sometimes the game I retrieve from the wreckage is from a decade ago.
Now without further ado, let’s start from the bottom:
10. Terra Nil
Terra Nil is a reverse city builder, or.. to be more accurate, it’s more of an environment builder than a city builder, I guess. You take areas that have been ravaged by time.. or war, I have no idea, and you reintroduce fauna and flora to it. There’s a bit of strategy to it as you only have a certain amount of environment points to use to buy the machines that affect the land.
There’s three stages in each scenario, one: you’re just trying to get some grass and water to cover the land, turning infertile soil to a fertile one. Two: where you introduce the big animals like deer, bears, wolves, frogs, etc. And then three: where you have to pack it all up, leaving none of the machinery behind so you can let the animals roam in peace.
It’s beautiful and calm with satisfying sound effects and soothing music.
9. Dredge
Dredge is a spooky fishing hybrid with a well-executed gameplay loop of fishing, selling, and upgrading. The atmosphere keeps you on your toes as well as keep you coming back for more with quests and lore that gets deeper as the game progresses. As a fishing game, I thought the mechanics were really well done. Fishing usually feels tedious: the quick timed button presses of pulling on the fishing rod, the push and pull of the line so it doesn’t break… NONE of that here, thankfully. Each item or fish you dredge up is accompanied by a small minigame and they’re never difficult enough that I dread doing over and over again. As a fishing game, it’s pretty normal! A fun and addictive cycle of fishing and selling.. that is, until you hit night time.
Night time is when the spooky element comes in. Something is in the water and it comes after you if you’re out in the middle of the ocean when night falls. So it becomes a balance of trying to get fish at certain times of the day while avoiding the thing that lurks in the deep waters, but some of those fish you need are only available at night. What now?
It’s such an interesting concept, and definitely deserves checking out.
8. Risk of Rain Returns
The release of this game feels oddly unfair, because I loved the first Risk of Rain, so of course I was going to love this one. It’s basically the first Risk of Rain but improved! A working multiplayer (anyone who knows the first game knows how bad it was before), new sprite graphics, more items, new characters to choose from and a new Trial mode! There’s so much to love.
And if you’ve never heard of the game, that’s fine: it’s a roguelike survival platformer where you fight, collect items, and find your way to the end (or never end at all and just see how long you can go). You get stronger and stronger the more items you collect, but the longer you take, the stronger the enemies get, and it’s a very well balanced game that’s hours of addicting fun, especially if you play with friends.
7. The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom
TOTK (tears of the kingdom) is like BOTW (breath of the wild) but the world is bigger, there’s more things to do, more to explore, more to use in fights.
The developers also must have heard about my hoarding tendencies and decided “no more” and found a way to make me use my items because this game is about scavenging everything you find and using it to your advantage. The story telling is much like BOTW where you find pieces of it throughout Hyrule, but not without getting COMPLETELY sidetracked in shrines, koroks, side quests and building all sorts of Bokoblin torture devices.
I’m sure I could say more of this game if I had played more; I loved BOTW and it seems they heavily expanded on it, keeping almost every aspect of it only to add more, but with only 40hrs of gameplay, I can only comment on the little that I’ve seen (which is all of the ground side and the sky side with a small, small fraction of the depths).
6. Volcano Princess
If you have played any Princess Maker games, this plays very similar to that. If not, let me explain: You play as the father of a daughter — your wife is gone so it’s just you — and for the early stages of your daughter’s childhood, what you say and do greatly affects the person your daughter becomes. She starts to have goals and ambitions and as she grows older, you take control as her to do activities that guide her towards those goals, and, as her father, you can choose to talk to her in certain moments, to listen to her worries (or ignore her like a trash dad lol).
This is a very simple concept executed well. The game has very cute and consistent graphics; I found myself cheering my daughter on, wanting her to succeed as she would talk to you as a kid would. My first playthrough she wanted to be a swordsman because I’m an absolute barbarian with the brain size of a pea and I told her stories of Heroes and Knights when she was younger. The game’s story is spread throughout the game with each path your daughter can take giving a very different ending. The first ending I got made me sit and stare at the screen for a good minute — I’m so proud of my gay swordsman daughter (;_;). Definitely give it a go.
5. Blade Assault
Blade Assault is a fast paced roguelite action platformer that scratches that Hades itch. It’s chaotic, fun, and each run will be different depending on what items you find or skills you get. The controls are smooth and there are different characters with different attack styles so you can find the one that matches you most. The fights are adrenaline inducing with tough but fair bosses at the end of each level.
As with any roguelites, you can unlock things after each run to make the next one just a little easier. The narrative style is very subtle, a lot of it is finding it for yourself and making the connections in your head: each character you can control interact with the people around them differently. It’s not in your face, and I like piecing the story together on my own. And, if you don’t care for any of that, you can just smashy smashy your way through the game, that works too!
4. Against the Storm
Let me tell you, this game was NOT what I thought it would be. Watching the trailers, my first thought was how the buildings had a Warcraft vibe and I wondered if it would just be an RTS. Hoo boy, was I wrong.
Against the Storm is a roguelite city builder — which sounds like two things that should not mix. You build settlements to gain enough reputation through orders or events, and once you’re done and the settlement can live without you, you abandon everyone you know and love and just move on to the next one!
At first I really didn’t know how I felt about abandoning all the hard work I did in building the town up, but gradually I felt less and less bad about it. It’s necessary too, because in roguelite fashion, you get points you can use to level up each time you succeed or fail the settlement. These points assist you in making each run easier, motivating you to try higher difficulties as the game throws more and more at you. It’s a surprisingly fun gameplay loop, with each settlement different from the last and new strategies required to beat them.
3. Rhythm Doctor
Rhythm Doctor is a game I know all the way in its Flash game days. Remember that? Flash games? I think my knees just cracked.
As the title suggests, it’s a rhythm game where you play as an off-site doctor, curing heart patients left and right with a simple tap of the spacebar. I love rhythm games where there’s not too many buttons you have to press and you just focus on the beat; it feels less like a Whack-a-Mole and you can play the game with your eyes closed. There are some crazy mechanics and concepts in here that I will not spoil, but will blow you away the first time you see it. The game introduces a new mechanic as you progress each stage all amalgamating into utter chaos in the end but is so satisfying once you get the right rhythm.
2. Celeste
What wonderful things can I say about Celeste that other people have not already said?
This game controls so smoothly, you will forget that you’re staring at a screen holding a controller. This game is so visually dynamic, you will never get tired of seeing it. This game is so emotionally driven, that at the end, you will feel like you climbed a mountain yourself. The clever level design makes you utilize every button, every mechanic and keeps you holding your breath in anticipation until you can finally breathe at the end.
Celeste is not about leveling or grinding, but it’s about pure skill. The only thing you need each level is you and when you’re done, maybe you come out of the game a little stronger. If you love a good platformer or just want to know what a masterpiece is, you can’t go wrong with Celeste.
1. Dragon Quest Monsters: The Dark Prince
Now, before I say anything, I would like to preface with saying I love Dragon Warrior Monsters on the Gameboy Colour. The announcement of a new Dragon Quest Monsters game was completely out of left field and released with zero fanfare and marketing, so barely anyone knows of this game or is even talking about it. But I am, I’m talking about it.
3ish days of no sleep and halfway through the game, I can say with certainty that it’s absolutely fantastic. There’s so many elements taken from the previous Monsters games (breeding, small vs larger monsters, etc) and with over 500 monsters to collect it is a monster capture dream. Being able to filter through monster lists and seeing which ones you’ve caught already only streamlines the process of capturing and merging monsters, with a quick teleport button that make travelling from one area to the next especially easy. They did a lot to make sure you can focus on capturing and only capturing and I appreciate that.
It’s just such a treat to explore the world, each area bigger than the last, and observing the behaviours of the monsters as they do their own thing before you mow them all down like a steamroller is the little things that keep me going.
Honorable Mentions
Scarlet Nexus
Loving Scarlet Nexus was a welcome surprise. This game is pretty with a fun and engaging combat system as well as a very compelling story with all sorts of twists and turns that keep you playing. You play as one of two main characters — each character with a different perspective and 1 map that only that character specifically has access to — and you slowly unravel the whole story once you’ve played both perspectives. I loved the character interactions, both serious and goofy, and the little detail of gifting something to someone and seeing that on their desk or seeing them interact with it brings me so much joy.
Chained Echoes
I love RPGs, and I especially love pixel ones. Chained Echoes was a wild adventure from start to finish, with twists and turns that some I predicted, and others that threw me for a loop. There’s a lot of quirky and fun characters in there (my favourite being Sienna) and the battle system keeps you on your toes when it comes to strategy.