Tales from the Backlog: Dave's Top 10 Games of 2023
Hi there! This is Dave from Tales from the Backlog. Tales from the Backlog is a weekly video games review podcast, mostly focusing on games in my backlog. Each episode is a deep dive on a game’s mechanics, story, music and more, with no spoilers until a very clear spoiler wall. Anybody can listen to any episode of the show and find out what makes a game special (or not), without worrying about getting spoiled. Many of the games on the list you are about to read were featured, or will be featured soon on Tales from the Backlog, so those may be good places to start!
2023 saw a lot of projects that were delayed by Covid finally get a release, and the result is a year where narrowing down the new releases to 10 is a monumental task, and that’s not even accounting for favorites that I have yet to play, like Super Mario Wonder, Octopath Traveler 2, Spider-Man 2, Cocoon and many more! We often exclaim how many new games are deserving of our time and how little time we have to play them, and that was never more true than in 2023. So with all that being said….let’s get on to the list!
Five Honorable Mentions (in alphabetical order)
Bleak Sword DX
Bleak Sword, developed by more8bit and published by Devolver Digital, was first released in 2019, but didn’t garner much attention in my circles due to its exclusivity to Apple Arcade. In 2023, however, an updated version titled Bleak Sword DX was released on Nintendo Switch and Steam, and it immediately grabbed me with its undeniable aesthetic- big pixel design in a striking black, white and red color palette. Bleak Sword DX is a series of diorama combat arenas, featuring simple-but-engaging Soulslike combat and a fun progression system that calls back to roguelikes and RPGs from decades ago. It is a real treat.
Coffee Golf
The Wordle craze seems to have receded a bit, and a new challenger has risen to claim the throne of best daily, shareable game. Coffee Golf, by Shallot Games, is a free mobile golf game, offering one five-hole course to play each day. You can tackle the holes in whatever order you choose, using a driver, wedge and putter. Your choice of club and the order in which you take on the five holes gives rise to a surprising amount of strategy, and when you’re finished, you get a Wordle-esque score to share with your friends. Recent updates have added leaderboards and head-to-head matches. Golf games are usually very good, and the bite-sized nature of Coffee Golf makes it easy to pick up…but the hardest part is putting it down.
Dead Space
Having never played the original Dead Space, this was not very high on my priority list. But after playing another game that you’ll read in the top 5, I figured I would give Motive Studio’s remake a go. I had already spoiled myself on the story, but the gameplay loop of cutting off limbs and stomping on heads was satisfying all the way to the end, if not a bit repetitive. Throw in incredible visual and audio design and you’ve got yourself a very satisfying horror game. If you’d like to hear more, you can check out the podcast episode here!
Hi-Fi Rush
Tango Gameworks took the gaming world by surprise by shadow dropping Hi-Fi RUSH during a showcase event early in the year, and it could have ended there- not all shadow drops take the gaming world by storm, after all. Hi-Fi RUSH’s genre was a risk as well- rhythm games are going to alienate a certain demographic of players by nature, and when you mix that with character action, you’d better know what you’re doing. But it doesn’t take long before you realize “hey, this is just a really well-designed game”. There are so many visual and audio cues to help players find and maintain the beat, and it’s got a fantastic soundtrack to bob your head to as you play. It’s an absolute delight. If you’d like to hear more, you can check out the podcast episode here!
The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom
Of all of the games in the honorable mentions category, Nintendo’s The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is arguably the “best” of the bunch. Few games released this year inspired a feeling of freedom, wonder and exclamations of “holy shit, how did they make this all work??” quite like this one. But for all of its virtues, and despite this being *by far* my most anticipated game of the year…I played for a month or so, set it down and never picked it up again. It’s still sitting there, about 30% complete, and I don’t really feel like playing it right now. It still gets an honorable mention nod because I do think it is a great game, but there is something more going on, something that needs to be unpacked. It’s a good thing for me that I host a podcast where I can do that unpacking.
My Top 5 Games of 2023
5. Like a Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name
I am a huge fan of Ryu Ga Gotoku’s Yakuza/Like a Dragon series, so a new game in the series is an instant buy at this point. Like a Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name comes at a perfect time. Just when fans of the series are getting ready for the next game (Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth, coming in February) and at the same time feeling a bit nostalgic about previous series protagonist Kazuma Kiryu, in comes a mini story explaining what Kiryu was up to between Yakuza 6 and Yakuza: Like a Dragon (bear with me with this naming system). If this was all it was, it would have been enough. But this was not all it was- Gaiden improved the brawler style combat that the series was built on, told an emotional story and included all of the wild spectacle and melodrama that the series is beloved for, and ended up in the top half of my personal series rankings. If you’re interested in hearing more, keep your eyes on the Tales from the Backlog feed in early 2024!
4. Jusant
There is a common descriptor out there that I hear about DontNod’s games….“vibes-first”, meaning they create games where the GAME element is secondary to the vibes and storytelling. While I think that term is pretty reductive, I can’t argue that vibes make up some of my favorite parts of their previous games that I’ve played, such as Vampyr and Life is Strange. But those wouldn’t make a top 10 list for their given years, so you may have guessed why 2023’s Jusant cracked the top 5. Jusant combines those trademark vibes with fantastic environmental storytelling and supremely engaging moment-to-moment gameplay. Jusant is a mountain climbing game, and if you picture an Uncharted game where you had to plot out and execute every handhold, jump and rappelling movement, you’ll have a good idea of what to expect. It’s gorgeous, it’s engaging, and if you take the time to stop and look around the environments and piece together the story via the journals you find, I think you’ll find this as special as I did.
3. Blasphemous II
The Game Kitchen’s previous releases, The Last Door and Blasphemous, established them as unquestioned masters of pixel art and music. Both of those games, however good they are, had some gameplay issues that dropped them down a few notches. All that being said, The Game Kitchen have clearly been taking player feedback into account, because Blasphemous 2 is an improvement over the first game in just about every way. Its metroidvania design has been upgraded in a big way, rewarding your exploration with items to help you in combat, give you new movement abilities, customize your character and sometimes all three at the same time! Blasphemous 2 also continues the Catholic religious horror aesthetic and story that the first game started, complete with gorgeous and brutal pixel art and a fantastic tone-setting acoustic guitar and piano soundtrack. If you’re a fan of metroidvanias, you owe it to yourself to try this one. If you’d like to hear more, you can check out the podcast episode here (after December 13th)!
2. Resident Evil 4 Remake
As remakes and remasters become more and more common, gamers are asking themselves “what do I want from a remake?” (just as Offshore Gamescast hosts Dylan, Dave and I asked in this Tales from the Backlog roundtable episode). Capcom’s Resident Evil 4 didn’t *need* a remake, but 2023’s version is a slam dunk. It updates the gameplay (you can now move and shoot at the same time) but preserves the spirit of the original: pulse-pounding, frenetic action that tests your moment-to-moment decision making and adaptability. Its dynamic difficulty makes sure that you are always in that panicked, yet badass sweet spot, and while the story is a bit less wacky as it was in the original, this is still a goofy game at heart. Oh, and Ashley is MUCH improved. This goes in the remake hall of fame, as far as I’m concerned, and this is an excellent game for Resident Evil superfans and newbies alike. If you’d like to hear more, you can check out the podcast episode here!
1. Baldur's Gate 3
2023 has been full of great games- many of the games in my top 10 could have been game of the year if times were different. And while many of us had games like Spider-Man 2 and Tears of the Kingdom, those of us who were in the know had a dark horse circled. Baldur’s Gate 3 is the latest from Larian Studios, makers of the not-so-secretly great RPG series Divinity: Original Sin. The second game in that series is a top-20 game of all time for me, so I knew they would bring the heat when they got the rights to Baldur’s Gate. And bring the heat they did! Baldur’s Gate 3 excels in every area: the story is creative and compelling, the cast of side characters is memorable (with some of the best voice acting I’ve ever heard), your choices actually matter to degrees not often seen in video games, and Larian continues to make deep, tactical and expressive turn-based combat that flies in the face of unnamed games executives who think turn-based combat can’t sell. The final piece, and perhaps most crucially, is that Larian made a concerted effort to onboard players who are not familiar with Dungeons & Dragons (this was not the case in Baldur’s Gate 1 or 2), so everybody can feast on this magnificent, deep RPG. Baldur’s Gate 3 is a landmark video game, one that we will look back on in wonder, and it is hands down my Game of the Year for 2023. If you’d like to hear more, make sure you subscribe to Tales from the Backlog so you won’t miss the episode coming in 2024!